Tourists visiting New Brunswick could soon spot gas tankers among the whales and fishing boats, as the giant ships use local waters to reach three proposed liquefied natural gas plants across the border.

"This is a tourism area," John Craig, mayor of St. Andrews, N.B., told CTV News. "This is not an industrial area. This is a way of life. We are fighting for our way of life."

Tourism is highly important to St. Andrews. But a U.S. company is hoping to put a gas facility just five kilometers away in Maine.

As opposition leader in 2005, Stephen Harper said Paul Martin's government should take action against allowing the tankers to use local waters.

"Will the prime minister do what prime ministers have done for 30 years and stand against American LNG tanker traffic in our internal waters at Head Harbour (Passage), New Brunswick," Harper said.

Head Harbour Passage is an internal Canadian waterway. Harper must now decide if his own government can stop tankers from using the waterway to reach U.S. ports.

However, there is some dispute whether such a ban is even possible, because of the "innocent passage" provisions of international marine treaties, The Canadian Press Reports.

"Canada can say 'no' verbally, but legally there is no definition at this point as to what innocent passage means," Cary Weston, public relations spokesman for Quoddy Bay LNG, which is proposing a plant in Maine, told CP. "It's a grey area."

Robert Jette, a lawyer based in Saint John, N.B., said internal waterways might not apply to the "innocent passage" provisions.

Canada must first prove that Head Harbour Passage is, in fact, an internal waterway, he told CP.

Once that is done, "the argument is that the sovereign state of Canada has the ability to prevent any foreign vessel from doing anything in its internal waters, if it so deems," he said.

But despite the fears of local residents, the American companies planning to create the plants say the impact on tourism will be minimal.

"We want to schedule ships in a way to minimize impact on the environment or businesses," said Dean Girdis, president of Downeast LNG. "In terms of St. Andrews I don't believe there will be a major impact."

Despite the protestations of New Brunswickers, the companies say the it's impossible to stop the tankers. But Craig wants Harper to put a ban on the ships by April 7, and he has the support of both local residents and some in Maine.

With a report by CTV's John Vennavally-Rao